Schimmel Siamese & Oriental Cats are Oriental cat breeders based in Oxford, UK. We sometimes have Oriental and Siamese kittens for sale. We also have 2 Oriental Stud Cats and online kitten diaries.

Kitten Diaries

Amarula

June 2007

Birth

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

Week 11

Week 12

Week 13

Week 14

Week 15

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Amarula's 2nd (And Final) Kitten Diary - June 2007 to September 2007

Litter out of Ch Schimmel Stripe It Lucky X Schimmel Charming Chives

We are 1 week old now!

Day 6 - July 6, 2007

Again this morning we have had weight gains by all 4 of our Nuts. They weren't massive gains, but at the moment, any gains are a definite bonus and surprisingly, just like yesterday, it is Macadamia who has gained the most weight in the past 24 hours. As it stands at the moment, all 4 Nuts are being given Nutri Drops twice a day (every 12 hours), they are also all being topped up although it is a real battle of wills between Pecan and myself to try to get him/her to actually take any milk from me. Cashew isn't much better, whereas Pistachio and Macadamia are more than happy to be syringe fed. Leaving Amarula aside for a moment, and the fact that the weight gains could be higher, I can actually say that at the moment all 4 babies are holding their own. They are healthy, strong, alert babies who are all more than capable of seeking out a nipple when hungry and despite the position that Amarula lies in, they still manage to squeeze themselves in and latch on. They are also quite talkative, particularly when it comes to being weighed and when they don't feel like leaving the warmth of the box to be plonked on the scales they don't hesitate to let me know. Amarula hasn't been eating the JW kitten biscuits so yesterday when I was at Tesco, I bought a different brand of dry kitten biscuits, it's a complete balanced meal and is called Perfect Fit Junior (made by Waltham). I must have been standing there reading ingredients on all the back of the kitten biscuit packets for a good 20 minutes to try to get the best one. She has been eating some of them, so that is a good sign, but I am also considering getting some Iams kitten biscuits for her as well. I can not stand Iams products at all, however, I'm desperate enough to give it a go if it means Amarula will eat a bit more.

Day 5 - July 5, 2007

Well, another day brings changes yet again. I have to be honest and say I was dreading the weigh in session this morning, in fact..............I was totally petrified. I am incredibly relieved to say that all 4 babies have gained, the smallest gain being 6 grams, the largest gain being 18 grams and that was Macadamia! I am more than happy with these weights during a 24 hour period, especially considering the difficulties. I actually looked back at Amarula's previous kitten diary and one thing I have noticed is that unlike a lot of other queens, Amarula does have a tendency to lie curled up in a ball when her babies are feeding. I have noticed her doing it with this litter but hadn't realised she also did this with her last litter. It is much easier for the babies to feed when mum is is lying stretched out, and even though I have tried to place her in this position, she does just curl straight back up. I really was at my wit's end yesterday and didn't know what to do. By 1500, Amarula still was barely eating, and I was almost certain that when today came around, I would have to try another mum with the babies. She suddenly started showing an interest in food last night and has been eating, not huge quantities, but she's been eating whatever I have offered her. So going off the fact that she is now eating, and the fact that the babies have made some gains, I am going to hold off using a surrogate mum for now. It is only 3 more days (hopefully) before our other lady gives birth, she will be joining Amarula in the kitten room, I will be praying that the girls will share the babies. Both these ladies have shared with mum's and babies before so I am desperately hoping it will be no different this time around. Now onto patterns...................................... I know it's early days and I really should wait until he/she is older before saying for definite, however, I'm going to risk looking ridiculous and state that Pistachio is definitely an Oriental Blue Spotted Tabby. Our very first and I'm delighted and am so looking forward to watching him mature and watch how the pattern progresses. Ideally what we are looking for is a pattern where the spots are very visible, the spine line is not solid, and the spots must be defined and not just a mackerel line that has broken up, so this will be interesting (well for me anyway). I'm not going to go into Pecan's pattern yet because I'm still not sure but time will tell. At last Cashew is starting to open his/her eyes which I am pleased about and when I look closely at some of the photos, there is a definite underlying pattern on Cashew under the Black coat. It isn't unusual to have ghost markings in Self Oriental kittens, particularly when one of the parents is a tabby. As for Macadamia, well the weights speak for themselves and while we are certainly not out of the woods yet, not with any of our children, this morning's weights has given me some hope. But I'm sure if you look at the photos below, you will have to agree with me that these are simply the most beautiful babies in the entire world :)

Day 4 - July 4, 2007

All entries are short today with no photos as I've not had the time to get proper entries online.

I'm actually trying to find something good to write about in today's diary entry but I'm struggling, I really am. The one small bit of good news I have is that Amarula's diarrhoea is starting to clear up, albeit slowly, but there is a big difference now. On a bad note however, Macadamia is refusing to put weight on, despite 2 hourly feeding, and our 3 Oriental babies only had minimal weight gains today, so I have started topping them up 2 hourly as well. Amarula is barely eating enough to keep herself going, let alone the babies at the moment. She is still on the sensitive diet which she isn't that keen on, I have started adding the a/d to the Sensitive diet on the off chance that will make a difference but so far, absolutely nothing. It's still another 4 days before our next lady is due to give birth so I can't transfer the babies to her yet. My only other option, and this is one I am seriously contemplating, is evicting all the older babies from their own kitten room, putting the Nuts in there, and see which of the older babies' mum's might accept the Nuts as their own, if any of them will. Their own babies are so much older and they may not feel up to raising another litter. I know that Sambuca still has milk coming through as I expressed some today. Cointreau has very little. Drambuie definitely still has milk, however, she has just come back into call. For the meantime, all I can continue to do is keep enticing Amarula to eat, keeping feeding 2 hourly, continue with the Nutri Drops, and pray. All of our Nuts have their eyes fully open now, apart from Cashew. His/her eyes are still firmly closed but at just 4 days of age I'm not particularly concerned. I had yet another close look at Pistachio's pattern today and I am starting to see the lines break up into spots so I am almost certain that Pistachio will be a Blue Spotted Tabby Oriental, our first ever Spotted so that is rather exciting. The jury is still out on Pecan but I wouldn't be surprised if he turned into a Spotted, whereas Teen feels Classic, so it's going to be interesting :)

Day 3 - July 3, 2007

Okay, where to start? Our 3 Oriental children have made fantastic gains during the past 24 hours, the milk is well and truly flowing and they are feeding well. This surprises me because Amarula is still in quite a bad way as far as I'm concerned. I do not know how quickly the Pro Kaolin should be kicking in and doing it's job, but at the moment we do still have problems with the diarrhoea. As I said to one of our kitten families and friends this morning, our washing machine is on the go from 7am until about 10pm with the bedding that has to be changed constantly. So with this, combined with the fact that to my mind, she is not eating anywhere near as much as she should be, then it's actually a miracle that our children are doing so well. Not all of them are though. You will notice I didn't mention Macadamia when it came to weight gains and this is because he/she continued last night to lose a few grams. The baby is still over 100 grams, but starting from today, I have began 2 hourly feeding and will continue to do so now until I start to see positive gains. I will also Nutri Drop because I need to be sure that Macadamia is getting everything he/she needs. We are so lucky that Macadamia was such a good birth weight because she/he has a lot of substance behind her/him but if I don't do the 2 hourly feeding, then the baby will continue to lose weight and will eventually fade so now my main concerns and what I am putting most of my energy into is the feeding, and Amarula's health. Despite her own problems, Amarula continues to be a superb mother to her children and she dotes on them. We do have Hills a/d in the home which I know would make a big difference to her own condition, however, it would be a huge risk in that this could upset the digestive system which is already suffering from stress. I guess for the time being we will continue with the Sensitive diet, and with the Pro Kaolin, although I am extremely tempted to start giving her freshly cooked fish (this is excellent for any cat with digestive problems) combined with some goats milk yoghurt. We always have the goats milk probiotic yoghurt in the home because it is ideal for cats as it does not upset them, remembering that cats are lactose intolerant, but it is full of natural bacteria designed to aid the digestive system. Our own cats and kittens are given it daily and I might try Rula on it and see if the problem gets worse or starts to pick up. Graham and I were saying last night that this could well be Amarula's last litter. As you know it is only her 2nd litter, there was a year between the that litter and this one, she did have a difficult labour with her first litter due to a baby being in an awkward position, and when we look at how much the c-section she has just had has taken so much out of her, and what she has been through, then we need to seriously think whether it is worth risking this again with her. Her own mother, Amaretto, is an excellent breeding queen, but I just don't think Amarula has it in her, despite being a fantastic mummy, she has been through so much with this litter so she may well be spayed and just live out her life here with us another loveable loafer. Now of course I can not end this kitten diary without boring you all to death with patterns again :) So................today, I was about to say that I was of the opinion that Pecan is definitely not a Classic Tabby, meaning he is either spotted or mackerel, however, I went back to Ashanti's own kitten diary and there were individual photos in that diary virtually every day as I was trying to learn about his pattern, and I have done some comparisons. What is interesting is that I am seeing the same markings now on Pecan that were on Ashanti. It wasn't until Ashanti was 5 days old that the faintest, of faint oysters started to appear. He also had similar markings on the back of his neck at that age that Pecan is showing, so wonders may never cease, Pecan may well end up being a Classic. We will see. As for Pistachio, goodness only knows, I'm not going with Classic yet though and am still sticking with Spotted or Mackerel. I could of course just sent photos to one or two of the Tabby experts in the country, and I know I would get answers straight away as to what they are, but that would defeat the purpose of me trying to learn by experience. And after typing all of that, and then taking photos of the Nuts, I am seeing a much clearer pattern in the photos than when I look at the babies in the fur, and I have a feeling that we won't be seeing any oysters on Pecan after all so the plot thickens :) Speaking of photos though, you will notice that today's images are pretty bad, I'm struggling to take decent pics of them at the moment. You will also notice the mess that Macadamia is in. With everything that is going on with Amarula, the babies need to be bathed by myself and if you look closely at the photos with Macadamia, it will give you an indication of the mess that can occur after birth because not only does Rula have the current problem with the diarrhoea, queens do tend to bleed for a couple of days after birth, so a combination of both of these can make for babies who need baths. I did take the photos prior to bathing her because it's the first real chance I've had to take photos of them in the box without Amarula in the box (she was out of the box eating at the time).

Day 2 - July 2, 2007

We're having a good day and a bad day with our Nuts and Amarula. I woke up this morning to find that Amaretto now has diarrhoea which I'm putting down to stress from the c-section, combined with anaesthetic, antibiotics and a sudden diet of incredibly rich food (the Hi Life pate's and the Sheba) which would not normally be part of Amarula's diet. The bedding has to be changed constantly at the moment. Poor little Macadamia got the worst of it as he/she must have rolled in it during the night. The bit of good news is that today, 3 out of our 4 babies have all made gains during the last 24 hours, with Pistachio making the largest gains. The baby who lost weight again was Macadamia, our Siamese child. I am going to Nutri Drop everyone again today, I'm currently doing this just once at day at the moment, mainly because it is really just an added supplement and now that 3 are gaining, there isn't much need as they appear to be getting all they need from Amarula. However, just to be on the safe side and give them a bit of a kick start and ensure that they continue to gain, I think one dose a day will be enough. I will be monitoring Macadamia's weight throughout the day and if she continues to lose, I will start topping her up. At the moment, he/she is still over 100 grams. As I had mentioned in an earlier entry, today was the day for mum and babies to go into the vets for a check up. I spoke with Jo about the diarrhoea situation and Amarula is now on Pro Kaolin which she must be given 3 times a day, she is still on the a/b's, and she is also on a specific Sensitive diet (wet pouch food), which will help the digestive system, while still containing a lot of calories. The problem is that if the diarrhoea continues, the milk may dry up which I wasn't aware of until Jo told me today. So she absolutely has to eat this food and hopefully the Pro Kaolin will work. Her temperature is perfectly normal, so Jo is of the opinion that the diarrhoea is caused by stress due to the trauma she has been through. If it doesn't clear up in a few days I'll be taking her back into the vets so we can try something else. I also asked Jo if she would mind sexing the babies for me, (I figured as I was in there I may as well have it done by an expert), and I have a funny feeling that Marcelle has been desperately waiting to find out just what sexes these 2 Tabby babies are :) So now, it would appear that we have the following: (BUT...........don't put a lot of faith in these sexes because even Jo isn't sure due to the fact that all 4 babies' "bits" are well and truly swollen by now so it's impossible to tell!) Unless a baby is sexed when they are first born and still wet, then it's a nightmare because within one hour of being born, all their little "bits" swell up and look exactly the same.

Baby	Colour	Sex
Cashew	Oriental Black	Male
Pistachio	Blue Oriental Tabby (either Spotted or Mackerel)	Male
Pecan	Brown (Black) Oriental Tabby (either Classic, Spotted or Mackerel)	Male
Macadamia	Blue Tabby Point Siamese	Male

Now you may have noticed that I have changed my mind yet again about the patterns of our Tabby babies. I examined them quite thoroughly last night and I just am not seeing what I would expect to see with a Classic Tabby however, never having bred Spotted or the "non existent" Mackerel, it is all rather new to me, but lots of fun as well. Pistachio is showing definite vertical lines down the side of his/her body, there is no butterfly or oyster, there is no solid spine line at present, so it's a case of waiting to see whether or not the vertical lines break up into separate spots in which case, we would be hoping to see very defined spots, and not mere line breakages. Pecan is an interesting one in the respect that there are definite whorls on the tummy, and no spots, but still no butterfly or oyster, and again, I'm seeing vertical lines, there's no spine line. He/she may well end up a classic with an underlying mackerel pattern. Today's photos are horrendous, I'm not sure if it's me or the camera! Tomorrow I will try to get individual photos of the babies but that could be easier said than done because Amarula is incredibly protective of her children.

Day 1 - July 1, 2007

Amarula still looks quite bad but I am not surprised at all. I think she must be feeling discomfort as she tends to lie curled up rather than stretched out when the babies are feeding. She is currently on Synulox which is a general, fairly mild, antibiotic. This is one of the safe a/b's to give to queens when they are nursing babies because obviously the drug will also go into the babies' bodies via the milk but this will not do them any harm at all. On Monday we are taking Amarula back to the vets so she can be examined and have her post op check. I am hoping though that in a day or two, she will be feeling better. I do feel so very sorry for her and she is being such an excellent mum who loves her little Nuts .Today she did get out of the box to eat, but that is only because I picked her up and took her out because I don't want her to become so attached to her children that she forgets to look after herself. At the moment she is only eating the Imperial Hi Life tins, and Sheba. Nothing else, but right now I don't care what she eats. Late yesterday afternoon I went to Tesco and picked up loads of different varieties of cat food which I will continue to offer to her throughout the next few days. As for our little Nuts................................well 3 out of the 4 babies lost weight during the first 24 hours. I am not worried though just yet, nor am I going to start feeding them myself. All 4 babies are still over 100 grams and I'm not seeing any cause for concern. Remember that it is normal for babies to lose weight during the first 24 hours. Ironically enough, the child that gained weight was Pistachio, our Blue Tabby who struggled to latch on yesterday. He/she gained 2 grams, go figure! Pecan already has one eye almost fully open and the other eye is partially open, much earlier than I would like to see, but both eyes are opening clear without any problems so that is fine. As for sexes, don't ask, I haven't looked. I'm not bothered about the sexes right at this point, I'm more concerned with the pattern of our 2 Tabbies and I'm actually wondering whether or not I'm seeing spots appearing under the blue fur on Pistachio. I'm also starting to think that perhaps Pecan will turn out to be a Classic. It's all incredibly fascinating and you will no doubt find that "patterns" will be discussed quite often in this diary, which will possibly be very boring for some of you. What you need to remember is that we are novice Tabby Oriental breeders and this is a huge learning curve for us which you may already know if you have visited Ashanti's own pages on our web site. This is our first trial mating of close lines to see where we are going with the patterns and from the moment Ashanti was first born, I was totally hooked on the Tabby patterns and have since become quite addicted to them as each pattern: Ticked, Spotted, Mackerel, Classic, is very striking, and it's so hard to get good patterns sometimes which is what we are ultimately aiming for. So each Tabby Oriental that we breed, takes us one step closer to learning what we need to do in order to create the best patterns that we can to conform to the GCCF SOP. Macadamia and Pecan have been having the most vile nipple battles during feeding time, they both always want the same nipple and even at this very young age, they can be quite ferocious and if a few minor scratches start to appear I will not be surprised at all! Cashew is much more laid back and has a tendency to go in underneath and see if he/she can score some milk that way, Overall though, the first 24 hours hours is over, I'm feeling okay that our babies are progressing as they should, so we will wait to see what tomorrow's weigh in session brings, although I will give each baby some Nutri Drops today just as an added supplement. Oh, before I forget, I'm going to take a stab in the dark here and say that Macadamia will be a Tabby Point Siamese and not a Solid. If I were to be incredibly stupid and take a guess on colour this very early on, I'd be saying Blue Tabby :)

Birth - June 30, 2007

This was a horrendous experience for poor Amarula. She went into labour at approximately 1:00am and after about 45 minutes of contractions, a tail appeared. The baby was well and truly stuck though. Amarula pushed and pushed, the contractions were quite close, but the baby was not going to come out. I grabbed the vaseline, waited until she had another contraction, inserted my finger so I could try to move the baby slightly but even that was to no avail. The baby was quite "lifeless" and things were really looking quite bad. We waited it out for half an hour which seemed the longest half hour of our lives. At about 2:15am, Rula was looking incredibly tired, the baby was going nowhere, so I ran downstairs for the phone and called our vets. Jo told us to bring her straight in which we did, and we left Amarula with Jo for an emergency c-section. At 4:06am, Jo telephoned us to say that it was all over, Amarula had come round and was doing well, and the biggest surprise of all was that Jo had delivered 4 healthy, live babies! I actually think the first 2 words I said after she told me that was "Bloody hell!" The baby who was stuck, which was the Blue Tabby Oriental was alive and had survived the traumatic birth which did shock us, and initially, even Jo thought that the baby was dead. We got to the vets at about 4:25am and collected Amarula and the babies. As soon as we arrived home, I put the heat pad in the kitten box and plugged it in as the babies were not only extremely groggy but they were very cold. I could have kicked myself for not thinking to put the heat pad on prior to picking up Amarula because they do take a little while to heat up. Such a stupid, stupid thing to do and I should have known better and now I had cold babies and a cold heat pad. I did put Amarula in the kitten box with her babies but she jumped straight out, ran under the bed, and looked at me as if she didn't even know me. This worried me greatly because one of the big risks with c-sections is that the mothers will reject their children. I have never in my life known an Oriental mum to reject her children, even when Toussaint had her c-section, she wanted her babies straight away. While the heat pad was warming up, the babies were rubbed vigorously to try and get some warmth in them and as soon as the heat pad was hot, I put one thin layer of bedding on top of it and then put the babies on it. I then tried to entice Amarula out from under the bed. She wouldn't come out, so I had to almost drag her out. I put her in the box with her babies, turned my back to pick up some of the mess that was all over the bedroom by this point as we could barely move in there, while I was doing that, Amarula was straight out of the box again. I took a bowl of warm evaporated milk mixture to her, she had a few licks, I then smeared some of the mixture onto each of the babies because at least this is a familiar smell to Amarula. Remember also that when c-sections are performed, the babies smell of the vets, they do not smell much like their mum at all. At this point, Graham was also trying to tidy up a bit, and so I grabbed Amarula, put her back in the box, and I sat right in front of the box, gently stroking her and talking to her. It was imperative that she bonded with her children because the longer she doesn't bond, the higher the chances that she will have nothing to do with them. After about an hour of sitting there, Amarula started to relax, but would not really look at her children. What didn't help was that they were still quite groggy and normally, when babies are born, they are screaming like banshees and climbing all over mum looking for milk, but these babies were just too out of it. She did stay with them though and started to relax. Then at around 5:30am, some of the babies started to stir and look for milk so I gently eased Amarula down until she was lying down, I started expressing the milk myself to make sure she did have some. The hungry babies tried to latch on, not particularly successfully, but after an hour or two, the Siamese baby was latched on. I must say here that the Siamese baby was a bit of a shock. I always knew that there would be a very small possibility of Siamese children because both Amarula and Ashanti carry the Siamese gene, so even though they are both Orientals, because they carry this gene, they are still able to produce Siamese babies, but I wasn't really expecting it. Anyway, by 8:00am, the Siamese, and the Black were both latched on, but our Tabby babies just didn't get it at all. Particularly the Blue Tabby. By the time 9:30am had arrived, the only baby not latching on was the Blue Tabby because the Brown Tabby had gotten the hang of it. I tried over and over, I expressed milk from every available nipple that didn't already have a baby attached and I was virtually in tears because this poor child was so very hungry and was screaming at the top of his/her lungs, and he/she was so frustrated. I think that it didn't help that I was so stressed out and quite upset. In the end, I took the Siamese baby off the "good" nipple, pointed him/her in the direction of another nipple, and tried to latch the Blue Tabby onto the nipple that the Siamese had. Even that didn't work. At this point I had to leave the room. We are lucky that all 4 babies had excellent birth weights, so none of them were in any danger and the best thing for me to do was to leave the room, try and calm down, hoover and mop all the floors (Viv was visiting her baby today, Snow Queen), change all the litter trays, start the washing, cook the mince for the older babies. I finished all of that, went back upstairs to try again, I telephoned Teen of Maroochydore Siamese & Orientals to tell her what had happened and we had a bit of a chat (Thanks ever so much Teen), and tried to latch the baby on again, but still with no success. Viv then arrived with Carol so we visited the babies in the kitten room. After they left, I went back into our bedroom to try again but the Blue Tabby just wasn't having it. I then took the heat pad out as the babies were very warm, as was Amarula because she was trying to move off the heat pad. I have actually lost count of the hours I have sat/bent over in front of the kitten box trying to latch the baby on. I came back downstairs to prepare a fish meal for our upstairs babies, do some more washing, make a start on this new kitten diary, and when I went back upstairs again and I happened to see Blue Tabby buried at the bottom of the pack, looking as if he/she were suckling, I was praying this was the case. I didn't disturb them at all. I offered some food to Amarula in the box. By now her mothering instincts had well and truly kicked in and bless her, she wasn't leaving that box to eat or use the litter tray. It was not that she had rejected her children, she was actually in a state of confusion due to the anaesthetic. But it was so important that she had something because she had not eaten prior to going into labour and our poor little girl just looks so awful. She did manage half a pouch of Natures Menu kitten food, which I know is not much, but it is something. I'm going to keep going up every 2 hours to try and get her to eat some more. It's now 2:20pm, we are both so very tired, but there is still such an awful lot to do and we also have a kitten family visiting tomorrow as well. It took us a little while but we have now come up with some names for our babies and from now on, they will be collectively known as "The Nuts"

Baby	Colour	Birth Time	Weight
Cashew	Oriental Black	3am	113 grams
Pistachio	Blue Oriental Tabby (either Classic or Mackerel)	3am	107 grams
Pecan	Brown (Black) Oriental Tabby (either Classic or Mackerel)	3am	112 grams
Macadamia	Siamese (Colour Unknown)	3am	114 grams

We did ask Jo whether or not there was a problem with Amarula which was why she couldn't deliver the babies normally (you may or may not know that Rula had breech births with her first ever litter and she had an awful labour first time around) but everything is normal with her, the problem was that the Blue Tabby was in such a very difficult position and because of this, he/she couldn't be born naturally. Had there been a problem internally which meant that she would always have difficulties delivering babies then Amarula would have been spayed then and there. The photos are not great, but at this point in time, that is the last thing on my mind. You will also notice that Rula looks so dreadful but please remember she has been to hell and back during these last 12 hours. We would ask for prayers please that all 4 babies continue to latch on and that they will thrive.

Before I finish this entry, firstly I would like to thank my husband Graham, as he was so fantastic last night. Like me, he tried to assist with the birth, he drove me to and from the vets, and he remained so calm throughout it all. How much I appreciate his support. Secondly, we would both like to say how grateful we are to our wonderful veterinary surgeon, Jo, for not only allowing us to wake her up at some ridiculous hour, but also for doing such a fantastic job and looking after our darling Amarula, and for delivering 4 very special babies. Any breeder knows that their best friend is always their vet, and we could not ask for better vets than Jo, and Claire, and all the wonderful team at Brook Veterinary Clinic.

Oh, and one very last thing (yes I am well aware that I never know when to shut up!)....................................can I just say that I am totally, and utterly, thrilled to bits and over the moon at having 2 brand new Oriental Tabbies in our home. How amazing is that? 2 more little Ashanti's. Of course the fun and games will really begin when we ascertain exactly which pattern they are! They are not spotted, definitely not ticked as far as I can tell, they can only be Classics (like Ashanti) if Amarula carries the gene. The other option is Mackerel and there is some indication there that this could be the case. The problem with this of course is that as far as the Oriental breed goes, there really is no such thing as a Mackerel Tabby. What is making me think a the moment that they are not Classics is that there are no Butterfly's and no Oysters, although Ashanti's butterfly and oysters were not there right from birth either. But whichever way they go, what I am going to be very interested in is seeing whether or not this close mating has improved, or worsened the pattern in the kittens.

Birth Photos

Click Here to read Amarulas Pregnancy Diary.